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Texting While Driving Ban Passes Ohio House

The Ohio House of Representatives has passed a ban on texting while driving. Democrat Nancy Garland says the practice is too dangerous to be legal in Ohio.

GARLAND: “Studies show that drivers are 20 times more likely to get in a crash or near-crash if texting or reading text messages while driving. The National Transportation Safety Administration has reported that text messaging while driving is two times more dangerous than drinking and driving. This is because the reaction time of a texting driver is 35% slower than it is for marijuana smokers and 12% slower than it is for drunken drivers.”

Garland says individual cities have passed different texting while driving bans with different rules. She says this will get rid of a patchwork of laws and make one uniform law throughout the state. The bill now goes to the Ohio Senate.

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